Washington (AFP) – President Donald Trump announced plans to fire some 1,000 opponents from the US government Tuesday in a shock-and-awe start to his administration — but faced an unusual, public dressing down from a bishop.
On his first full day in office, Trump was meeting at the White House with leaders of the narrow Republican majority in Congress as he tries to get his agenda, including tax cuts, approved at rapid pace. Looking to impose himself immediately, he had signed a deluge of orders after his swearing-in on Monday.
In a post shortly after midnight on his Truth Social app, Trump indicated his drive to weed out critics was underway. He said his team was “in the process of identifying and removing over a thousand Presidential Appointees from the previous Administration, who are not aligned with our vision to Make America Great Again.” Four people had already been “FIRED!” he wrote, including retired general Mark Milley, who had been serving on an infrastructure advisory body. Milley was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff during Trump’s first presidency but became one of the Republican’s most prominent critics after he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
The acting head of the Department of Homeland Security separately announced the firing of Coast Guard chief Linda Fagan, who was appointed under Democrat Joe Biden and was the first woman to head one of the six branches of the US military. But Trump came face-to-face with a powerful critic Tuesday when a Washington bishop told him from the pulpit that he was sowing fear among America’s immigrants and LGBT people. “I ask you to have mercy, Mr President,” the Washington National Cathedral’s Mariann Edgar Budde told Trump, seated in the front pew for the customary inaugural service.
Trump — at 78, the oldest person ever to be sworn in as US president — issued measures Monday to suspend the arrival of asylum seekers and expel migrants in the country illegally. He also decreed that only two sexes — male and female, but not transgender — will be recognized. Other executive orders included pulling the United States from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization. He also pardoned hundreds of supporters convicted of crimes while attacking the Capitol four years ago in the attempt to overturn the election.
Newly installed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would also make a “big infrastructure announcement” later, although she did not say what this would be. One thing not happening Tuesday was a traditional daily White House press briefing by the top spokeswoman, who indicated that — as during his first term — Trump himself would do the messaging. “I can confirm the American people won’t be hearing from me today, they’ll be hearing from the leader of the free world once again. President Trump will be speaking to the press later at the White House,” she told Trump-friendly broadcaster Fox News.
Trump likes to berate the “fake news media” and call journalists “the enemy of the people” but also encourages intensive press coverage — in stark contrast to the media-shy Biden. Trump’s inaugural address — held indoors in the Capitol’s Rotunda rather than on the Mall because of bad weather — mixed dark imagery about a failing America with promises of a “golden age.”
After the pomp and ceremony, it was the showman Trump — along with the sometimes strongman-style rhetoric — that quickly took over. “Could you imagine Biden doing this? I don’t think so,” Trump told cheering supporters in a sports arena as he tossed them the pens used to sign a first round of orders. Once in the Oval Office, Trump held an impromptu 50-minute press conference as he signed more orders, including the one pardoning around 1,500 Capitol rioters.
He also declared a national emergency at the Mexican border and said he would deploy US troops to tackle illegal immigration — a key campaign issue in his November election victory over Kamala Harris. The returning president pledged to impose trade tariffs on Mexico and Canada, rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” and take “back” the Panama Canal, which has been controlled by the Central American country since 1999. He also confirmed he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
© 2024 AFP
